


Give a Little

by still_lycoris



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1376710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cally wonders what it is that the crew of the <i>Liberator</i> want after the war. In particular, what Avon wants ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give a Little

It was one of those one-off moments that stuck in the mind far longer than it ought to have done.

Cally couldn’t quite remember the details now. The wine had been a gift, she did remember that and Vila had been all too willing to get them all drinking it together. She’d only been able to manage a few gulps – something in it had disagreed with her – but the others had all clearly enjoyed it and were in various stages of drunkenness. Vila was bubbly and effusive, as he usually got when other people were drinking with him. Jenna was sleepy, actually had her head in Blake’s lap and he was lazily playing with her hair. Every time he did, his arm was brushing against Avon but Avon wasn’t trying to move away. He was sprawled back on the seat, his eyes slightly closed and Cally couldn’t remember ever seeing him so relaxed before.

Of course, it was Vila who started the conversation. Not on purpose but Cally sometimes thought of Vila as a conduit, someone who could facilitate the beginning of things without meaning to, opening out and revealing without thought and making others do the same.

“You know, when all this is over, we’ll be heroes, that’s what we’ll be. Heroes. That comes with certain perks, you know. I think I’ll live in one of those pre-atomic style buildings, you know? A huge house with twenty rooms, all with fur-lined floors. And beautiful servants in really short skirts … ”

“Very heroic,” Cally teased him and was rewarded with a grin and a small bow. The ramble had triggered a thought in her mind though and perhaps the few mouthfuls of wine she’d taken had had more of an affect than she’d thought because suddenly she found herself asking “Is that really what you’ll do?”

“Huh?” Vila said, rather gormlessly.

“Is that really what you want? When this all ends? You must have some real desire for what to do, where to go. What do you want, Vila?”

“Well, I … ” Vila looked slightly confused. “I want … well, all that would be very nice, you know, who doesn’t want fur-lined floors?”

“Someone with allergies?” Jenna suggested dryly and Vila pulled a face at her. He was playing with his glass and looking a little uneasy now.

“I guess … I mean, if they don’t respect my heroic status, I wouldn’t mind something smaller. Something … well, it might be nice to live out of the domes, you know? I’ve got used to the outdoors now. Mind you, I wouldn’t want to be too far away. I’d need things to steal … ”

“Sounds like your time living as a hero won’t last for very long,” Avon said drowsily. Vila opened his mouth, clearly intending to start an argument and Cally cut across him quickly, not wanting to leave this conversation yet.

“What about you, Jenna? What do you want when all this is over?”

“I want my own ship,” Jenna said promptly. “I’m a pilot, you know, it’s what I do. I don’t know if I’ll ever find one as lovely as the _Liberator_ though.”

She let that comment hang in the air for a moment and Cally looked at Avon to see if he would react, but he didn’t so she looked at Blake instead.

“And you, Blake? What do you want to do when it’s all over?”

He smiled at her, that easy smile that she was beginning to feel that she didn’t trust as much as she once had. What was happening behind those eyes, under that skin? What _did_ Blake want? He spoke of freedom but what did freedom really mean to him? He _said_ the right things but sometimes, Cally wondered if he quite felt them any more. She would follow Blake to the end but since Gan’s death – no, _before_ Gan’s death – something had changed within him and she was no longer as confident as she had once been,

“Oh, I think I’d like to go back to Earth,” Blake was saying casually, perhaps too casually. “I wouldn’t mind returning to one of the domes, you know. I was quite happy there, before all of this.”

“Difficult to imagine though, isn’t it?” Avon said. “Almost impossible, one might suggest.”

Blake gave him a look of extreme irritation and Cally broke in, trying to prevent that fight too.

“What about you, Avon? What are your dreams?”

Avon lifted his head to look at her, smiling that half-smile of his. 

“Oh, there’s no point asking him that!” Blake said, the laugh in his voice touched with more sourness than usual. “He’ll only start going on about wealth again and nobody’s interested. Tell us what you want to do, Cally.”

She didn’t answer for a moment. For a second – just the briefest moment – a look of shocked, shattered hurt had flashed through Avon’s eyes, parted his lips. It was concealed at once, a cold ice wall slamming down and as she watched him, he moved away so that he was no longer so close to Blake, sealing himself off from everything around him.

“Cally?”

What _did_ she want? Well, that was easy, she dreamed of Auron, of the rippling grasses and the singing of a hundred voices in her mind. Of playing with Zelda, laughing with old friends. But that was impossible, she knew that. It didn’t matter what the outcome of this war was to her, she would not be allowed to return. That life was closed to her, forever. She would simply have to put up with that, live with it as you lived with scars.

She didn’t know what she wanted, only what she did _not_. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to be lost.

“Oh, I’ll find something,” she said lightly. “I think it would be fascinating to explore Earth for a while. I would like to see more of your planet. One of the things I have enjoyed most about the _Liberator_ are the times we get to see different worlds.”

It was a good deflection because Jenna started talking about the places she had visited while travelling and Vila chipped in with stories of his own and Blake asked all the right questions, letting Cally and Avon fade silently into the background. 

She did not need telepathy to know that he was nursing his pain, just as she was nursing hers. And it occurred to her, for the first time that night, that perhaps their pain was similar.

Of course, she could not ask him about it. She knew Avon better than that. To ask him such a question would simply be an invitation for scorn and anger to be rained down upon her head. Avon did not share anything lightly. He concealed everything, jealously guarded his own self as though showing it would weaken it. So Cally did not ask, she simply watched and offered him the parts of herself that she thought he would not fear. And she did not forget her question or the fact that Avon had clearly had an answer to it in his mind.

There were not many moments for deep conversations on the _Liberator_. Oh, there were long spaces of time where they did very little, travelling from place to place. Time was filled with games or weapons practises or arguments – long, constant arguments. And Avon was a difficult man to talk to. Oh, he was quite easy to find on his own, if you wanted to. Working on a computer part, reprogramming different machines, watching the stars. But if you attempted to talk with him and he did not wish to talk, he would shut you down. And even if he was willing to talk, he kept it light. Personal questions were deflected or simply ignored. Cally knew better than to try. With Avon, you hinted that you might like to know something and stepped back, let it be processed. Sometimes he would then offer you a scrap of information, sometimes not. But a conversation about something that mattered … that was something Avon found difficult and thus avoided. On Auron, you didn’t have secrets like that with those that you were truly close to. Oh, you had secrets, they all learned from childhood the ways of keeping your most important thoughts locked into different compartments of the mind. But truly close friends and partners unlocked some of those compartments, revealed their contents.

Cally was certain that if Avon had been a telepath, every single compartment of his mind would have been locked and bolted.

And yet still, she felt they were growing closer. It was strange, being with humans. You had to work out levels of closeness in a totally different way. The way they looked at you, the way they smiled, the different ways they spoke. Oh, Auron had all those things too, of course, but without the touch of a mind to guide you, it was so different. And Avon was difficult even by human standards, she knew that from the things that the others had said.

But she _wanted_ to understand him. She wanted to _know_ him. She wanted him to invite her in, however it was that humans chose to do that.

In the end, it was more complicated than that.

She was only partially aware of what the alien had done as it had absorbed her mind and body. It had not been her body, rather a replica of it. Eventually, they would have been complete and bound forever but Avon had stepped in before that could happen, ended the link between them. She was ashamed to note that it hurt, that she had loved the sensation of being linked so completely. She was so alone … she would always be so alone …

He came to her that night, as ever waiting for her invitation before he entered her room. He sat beside her on her bunk, slowly reached up a hand and stroked her hair.

“Are you all right, Cally?”

“Of course. I’m sorry, I’m sorry I – ”

He dropped his hand from her hair to her mouth, touched her lips very gently.

“Don’t be sorry. Tell me the truth.”

“It was … frightening,” she offered, which was the truth, in a fashion.

“Because you wanted it? Because you wanted to surrender, have nothing matter any more?”

She looked away, couldn’t answer. She was ashamed, she was so ashamed.

“I understand, Cally.”

How could Avon understand? He was not Auron, he was not even a telepath and she had never yet seen him surrender anything. He didn’t even surrender himself to his friends. Suddenly angry, she threw that at him and then felt guiltier still when she saw a flicker of pain in his eyes.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “I have wanted nothing to matter, believe me. I have wanted … Cally, I _do_ understand.”

He was stroking her hair again. She thought about the hazy memories, dredged up his mouth soft on hers.

“You kissed … it.”

“I did,” he agreed calmly. “I had hoped for a better first kiss between us but then, when has life ever done what any of us wanted it to do?”

She laughed a little and leaned closer and after a moment, he leaned too, letting their lips brush against each other. Soft, almost shy … and then harder, eager, needy. Kisses became caresses and caresses became … more.

He curled against her afterwards, clearly struggling not to sleep immediately. Cally stroked his hair, quite happy for him to rest if he wished it. She felt drowsy herself; drowsy and content, even happy.

“Cally,” Avon murmured, pressing his face against her neck. “Cally … ”

She wondered what he was thinking, wished that she could know. His mind was more open than usual but it was a human mind, a mess of contradictory threads that she could barely touch, let alone understand. And would Avon want that anyway? Would he _want_ her to know him?

She wasn’t quite sure how thinking of that bought to mind the long-ago night when they’d discussed desires. Perhaps because it reminded her that there were so many things she did not know about Avon, so many things that he kept hidden, wouldn’t say – or couldn’t say. Whatever it was, the memory was there and without thinking, she put her hand on Avon’s cheek, stroked it gently.

“Avon, do you remember me asking you what you wanted after the war?”

He stirred, murmured something incoherent, clearly hardly hearing the question. It didn’t matter. Cally reached out, asking the question again and Avon’s sleepy mind provided the answer that he didn’t even realise he was thinking of before he slipped back into contented sleep.

It took her a while to sort it out into an understandable image. For it _was_ an image rather than words, a picture of Avon’s deep, secret dream that possibly was only accessible to him when he was sleepy or drunk.

The flight deck of the _Liberator_. It looked a little different – the couches more comfortable in some indefinable way, the atmosphere more jovial. The game of Galactic Monopoly was out and they were all sitting around it; herself beside Avon, his arm around her. Blake on Avon’s other side, then Jenna, Vila, Tarrant, Dayna, Orac on the table. Tarrant was losing the game and looked just a little less attractive than he did in reality. Avon was winning the game. He was comfortable and contented, surrounded by a family he’d never had before.

Cally felt that she should be charmed by the image, pleased by it. Instead, she felt a strange fear steal through her as she stared at the man who slept in her arms, lost in his dreams. His dream, his desire … did he realise that it could not be fulfilled once they had defeated the Federation? Did he realise that want, far from being a dream of _after_ the war, was a dream of an endless battle to keep them all together?

She did not know. And she knew that Avon would never, _could_ never tell her. Even if he knew the answer himself.

She pushed the fear away, settled beside him, let his soft breathing lull her into waking dreams. She could not give him everything he wanted. He could not give her everything she wanted. But together, they could give each other a little.

A little would simply have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the b7friday livejournal community prompt " what is longed for"


End file.
